Tincture

The material is cut, ground or crushed, then placed in ethanol in a closed vessel. Strong ethanol dissolves resins, light waxes and aromatic compounds well; ethanol diluted with water also takes more polar compounds. The vessel is shaken from time to time and kept in the dark. Some makers warm it gently to shorten the steeping time.

When steeping ends, the solution is settled and filtered. The residue may be steeped a second time. The strength on the label is usually the mass of material against the volume or mass of the solution; the two conventions give different figures, so two tinctures both marked 10 percent may not match.

Ambergris forms in the gut of the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus), is expelled into the sea and drifts for years. In 1820 the French chemists Pelletier and Caventou isolated ambrein, the triterpene that makes up most of an ambergris mass. Ambrein itself is nearly odourless; the smell comes from its breakdown products under light and air, among them ambrox and ambrinol. Ambergris tincture is therefore usually left to mature for months before use.

Musk is the secretion of a gland pouch of the male musk deer (Moschus spp.). In 1926 Leopold Ružička showed that muscone, the main odorant of musk, is a ketone with a 15-carbon ring. The same year he showed that civetone, from civet, has a 17-carbon ring. His work on large rings contributed to his Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1939.

Civet is the perianal gland secretion of the African civet (Civettictis civetta), collected from captive animals, mainly in Ethiopia. Castoreum is the secretion of the castor sacs of the beaver (Castor fiber and Castor canadensis).

All musk deer species have been listed by CITES since 1979. The populations of Afghanistan, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan are in Appendix I, which bars international commercial trade; all other populations are in Appendix II, where trade needs permits. The African civet is in Appendix III at the request of Botswana.

The sperm whale is in Appendix I. CITES guidance treats ambergris naturally expelled by the whale as a waste product, not a part or derivative of the species, so it falls outside the Convention. National law can be stricter: some countries ban ambergris trade even though CITES does not.

Ambrox is Firmenich's trade name for (−)-ambrox, the amber odorant found in weathered ambergris. It is usually made from sclareol of clary sage. Macrocyclic musks such as synthetic muscone, civetone and pentadecanolide (trade name Exaltolide) take the place of deer musk and civet.

Among plants, ambrette seed contains ambrettolide, a macrocyclic lactone with a musky smell. Castoreum is usually rebuilt from leathery, smoky and resinous materials such as birch tar or rectified cade.

Vanilla yields no distilled oil; the smell of the pod lies in vanillin and hundreds of other compounds that dissolve well in alcohol. Tonka bean is rich in coumarin, which must appear on EU cosmetic labels above the allergen threshold. Benzoin is a resin; its tincture carries benzoic acid and its esters.

Plant tinctures are often an intermediate step in the workshop. The maker may use them as they are, or distil off the alcohol to obtain a resinoid or absolute.